Joy In HousewifeVille

Surely you didn’t think I’d let Ichiro’s historic re-signing pass without a long, emotional post about how happy I am. This is one of the best days in recent Mariner history, and from a baseball perspective as well as a purely personal perspective, I am absolutely delighted.

I’d like to tell you a little story. A couple of years ago, when Brendan Ichiro was just a few weeks old, I was out having a horrific time trying to find nice infant clothes for a wedding we were going to. I had been in the mall for something like five hours, running out of time and becoming increasingly desperate. I was wandering through Sears or Macy’s or some other labyrinthine department store, and I ran across the toddler section. Hanging on the rack was an Ichiro jersey.

There was only one, and it was a size 4T (about the right size for a four-year-old). I looked at it and I thought, should I go ahead and buy this? It’s not like Brendan will be teensy forever, he’ll eventually grow into it. I stood there debating if I could afford it for a minute, and all of a sudden it occurred to me, wait a second- what if Ichiro isn’t still a Mariner when Brendan is four? What if Ichiro isn’t a Mariner when Brendan is two? This was at the end of the disastrous 2004 season, the end of the unfortunate Bob Melvin era, and things were looking bleak- this was even before we had signed Beltre. There wasn’t a lot of Mariner Mania happening at this point.

Now in my defense, I was utterly exhausted by the sleep deprivation, isolation, and nearly unmanageable stress of being a first-time parent. I was still battling post-natal hormones. I was stuck at the Lloyd Center mall, teeming with preening high schoolers and disdainful sales clerks, with a fussy, squirmy baby. I was just overwhelmed.

So as I was struggling with the dilemma of this jersey, all of a sudden, over the Muzak system, came the most nauseating, overwrought, sappy, inane, horrible love song of all time- Whitney Houston’s “And I Will Always Love You”. So, so, SOOO awful. But for some reason, at that second, listening to those maudlin lyrics and corny musical arrangement, my throat just caught, and I thought, I sincerely don’t know what I will do if Ichiro leaves. But I will always love him. My eyes filled with tears, and in a rush I had to leave the store and leave the mall, and go sit in my car with the baby and cry for a minute.

Of course I’m not that emotional all the time, that’s a ridiculous state of being. But I tell you this to demonstrate that as baseball-crazy as I have been for a good part of my life, there has been no player that I have felt as strongly about as Ichiro. It never occurred to me to name my child “Mark” after Mark Grace, for example. I admire so much about Ichiro’s character and philosophy- his dignity, his gracefulness, his focus, and his genuine love of this game. I love to watch him at bat, on the bases, in the field… even in the on-deck circle warming up.

So as my now two-and-a-half year old and I rushed home from a playdate to watch the press conference confirming that Ichiro is going to be a Mariner until Brendan is almost eight, I thought about what it was that made me such a huge fan in the first place. It’s not hard to see that this is a good thing for the team, but it’s a great thing for the fans as well. And during the press conference today, when Ichiro said that the fans in Seattle are really what moved him to stay, I would be lying if I told you I didn’t shed a tear or two.